New Delhi: The Delhi Police on Monday opposed in the Supreme Court conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar's plea for shifting him to a prison outside the national capital, calling him a "desperate and cunning criminal" who has no respect for law.
It alleged Chandrashekhar is abusing the process of law to further his crime syndicate and levelling baseless allegations against the Delhi Police and the central government.
A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and Bela M Trivedi, which is hearing a plea by Chandrashekhar and his wife Leena Paulose seeking transfer to any jail outside Delhi owing to alleged threat to their lives, was told by advocate Rajat Nair, appearing for the Centre, that the Delhi Police has filed an affidavit on his petition. Senior advocate R Basant,
representing Chandrashekhar, said he would like to a file a reply to the Delhi Police's affidavit which was served to them "at the last minute".
The bench posted the matter for further hearing in January and asked Basant to file a rejoinder affidavit. In its affidavit, the Delhi Police said, "That the accused/petitioner number-1 is desperate and cunning criminal, involved in various offences. It is clear that he has no respect for the law and does not hesitate to disobey the orders of even the Supreme Court of India."
It said Chandrasekhar, who is in judicial custody since 2017, had made such claims in the past, too, with the sole aim and intention to be able to secure a transfer out of Delhi as he is unable to run his crime syndicate from inside the jail.
"That the petitioner is abusing the process and august forum and remedy under Article 32 of the Constitution of India in order to further his criminal syndicate and in order to achieve the same, baseless allegations have been levelled against the respondents," it said.
The Economic Offences Wing of Delhi police which is investigating the cases against Chandrashekhar said he has repeatedly committed offences including money laundering during his incarceration by subverting the legal system and prison rules with the help of his knowledge of technology and his abilities to con people.
"It is submitted that there is absolutely no threat to the life of the petitioners inside the Tihar/Mandoli jail and the petitioner is only making up an excuse to repeat his modus operandi in some other prison where the prison officials would not be familiar with his antics," it said.
The Delhi police added, "It is also pertinent to mention here that accused Sukesh Chandrashekhar is not sitting silently even in judicial custody. Total three separate criminal cases have been registered against him while he was running in judicial custody period and in each case, he tried to manage the whole system and disobey the law ".